"Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called." 1 Timothy 6:12

a bottle of wine and a full length mirror

i was suppose to run 5 miles saturday. i planned on running outside and early. instead, i ran 3 miles– late in the afternoon, on a treadmill. i was foiled by a late night and a bottle of wine.

guess what– a night of wine consumption makes me sluggish, and it makes my head hurt, and it makes running not so fun.

so. there i was. nursing dehydration and slug-like tendencies. i knew i had to get some kind of run in, but even thinking about running outside, in the sun, made me want to blow chunks. which left me with no choice, i was gonna have to do a treadmill run– in front of a WALL of mirror.

oh.joy.

i thought running was painful BEFORE??

guess what– seeing my reflection added a new dimension to the trauma.

mirrors are mean. seriously.

i’ve decided mirrors are rude, and any mirror of a super-sized nature is NOT my homeskillet. fo’ realz.

see. that rude reflector of truth shattered my last shred of runner dignity. it made it very clear i look completely wack when i run.

i mean, i don’t intentionally go for freaky, but that mean mirror made it clear that the combination of my unique breathing technique to avoid the dreaded side-stitch, and the freestyle hand movements i use to punctuate the music piped in through my m&m ear-buds kinda keeps all potential cool points at bay. (yes. i have blue m&m ear-buds. no. they are NOT taking off cool points all by themselves. seriously.)

here’s the thing– when i run outside i can at least pretend i look cool. in my head i look AWESOME. i’m all hardcore and serious. i am an athlete with athletic skills and stuff. and with one run that darn mirror killed my dream. that mirror is a dream killer.

i tried to tweak my moves — you know to match the dream with reality. i pulled myself up straight– to lessen the defeated, downtrodden look my normal posture portrays. i tucked my arms in tight– to lessen the bird flap quality i didn’t know existed until that mirror killed my fantasy. i tried putting more of a bounce in my stride– so i didn’t look so dejected. also super cool– my wide head band made my head look incredibly tiny. which made my body look freakishly off balance. awesome.

shrunken head syndrome.

not good.

just sayin’.

so. the first attempt to get a long run in was a total fail. but, i did learn an important lesson– a bottle of wine and a full length mirror should be cut completely out of my training regimen.